I’m simmering underneath this facade
Of polite, hopeful citizen
I’ve got rage on a low boil
I’m hungry for equality
And an end to the bloodshed
I need to stop stewing
Time to eat or get off the pot
Hangry
Asides
It’s a Wonder-ful Life
The mystery of life to me is not that we were all created.
The mystery to me is that we all choose to keep living.
I am constantly astounded at the human spirit to live, survive, create, love.
I am amazed that we all keep saying “Yes.”
Who Can Take a Nothing Day
Once again, I had chosen the worst Halloween costume EVER.
I thought it was brilliant. I thought it was so obvious.
I was wearing a 60’s style dress and boots and had styled my brown hair a particular way. I had a big smile on my face and when someone asked me what I was supposed to be, I’d throw a hat up in the air and wait excitedly for them to get it!
They’d inevitably guess things like: “The Girl in the Red Dress!” (What was that?! Who was that?!)
Clearly, I was Mary Tyler Moore!! Hello!?!
It just did not translate for anybody else. All night, I was stopped and asked, and no one ever got it.
My date had some ghoulish makeup on. Everybody loved him.
I gave up throwing the hat around midnight and just went with The Girl in the Red Dress. It seemed to satisfy people in some way, and I felt like less of a failure.
Sorry, Mary.
Edible Art
“I insist,” she said to no one in particular as she slathered an additional layer of Fluff onto the graham cracker in preparation for the slab of Hershey’s that would soon complete her masterpiece.
“There. It is done.”
And within seconds, it was.
Grat Lists Galore
Since 2011, I have been practicing gratitude by writing a daily gratitude list.
It has been transformative.
Each day, I list ten things I am grateful for. I then list ten things I’m excited for. And (hardest of all,) three brags.
I post it to a Yahoo group started by a mentor/friend.
Each day, I get emails containing the posted “grat” lists of others.
It is amazing to have the daily reminders of appreciation for the small and big things in life. It helps keep my focus on the positive.
The way I am wired, for some reason, I have the tendency to focus on the negative: what isn’t working, what’s not going right, what I did wrong, what I do not have/is missing in my life.
The grat list keeps me looking for what is going right, what I do have, what I can appreciate right now.
One of the great parts of the grat list community is how it has become a virtual safe space where we can share whatever we need to and receive support or whatever we may need. It is a “no guilt, no judgement zone,” a place to be totally honest. It is not about being cheerful and positive, it is about being real.
I may go through dark times, but I can always find some things to be grateful for. That my limbs function. Sunshine. Clean water. That I woke up.
And, through our grat list group, I am never alone. Sometimes, the others’ lists keep me from falling into isolated despair. I may be down and another’s good day holds hope for the inevitable upswing that will come if I hang in there, a fact that is easy to forget when left to my own devices.
I am truly grateful for the grat list group, and all that the practice of gratitude has given my life. It is a powerful muscle that I plan on keeping supple.
Milestone
“I prefer to stand,” she said through teeth gritted with barely-contained hostility.
A young man had offered her his seat.
She had just entered middle age.
#shortstory #threesentencestory
Trick or Treat
My favorite holidays growing up were ranked according to how much candy was involved.
So of course, Halloween was number one, followed by Valentines Day, Christmas, with Thanksgiving bringing in the rear with its pies, cookies and cakes. (Not much candy, but food and sugar just the same.)
Halloween was a sugar addict’s dream. It was like St. Patrick’s Day for an alcoholic: full permission from the world to binge!
I loved dressing up, too, but the truth was that my excitement around the holiday was all about being able to get as much candy as I could and to be able to eat it without judgement or censure.
Candy was my love, you see.
It was my friend. My happiness. My comforter. My solace.
Candy was love to me.
There wasn’t a candy I did not love back except black licorice. Fortunately, my mother loved candy too, and black licorice was right up her alley, so it all worked out.
I had little rituals, such as taking candy corn and eating it one kernel at a time.
I’d gnaw it down in tiny front teeth bites, color stripe by color stripe, ever hopeful that the orange would taste like orange. (It never did – each stripe was always just a creamy sugary flavor. No matter.)
I’s unwrap a Hershey’s Kiss (we only had the classic milk chocolate then,) and put in in the center of my tongue and let it melt, sticking to the roof of my mouth. God, how I loved the sensuality of it!
My number one candy, hands down, was Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Back then we didn’t have the mini’s or the flavor variations.
It was the classic, regular-sized, 2 pack that you’d hope to score.
I’d save them to eat until the end, to savor. They, too, carried their own ritual.
I’d eat the crinkled edges away first, leaving a round, dense, creamy peanut butter and chocolate sandwich to eat like a sweet burger. I sang a little song of happiness as I finished.
Such happy memories. Looking back, maybe it is sad to think that candy held such a primary role in my life.
But it did. Can’t change that. Maybe that candy kept me alive.
My candy days are in the past. Though I may sometimes feel nostalgic for candy around the holidays, I can honestly say I am happy being candy-free today. My relationship to that candy held a dark side that I do not wish to return to.
That candy became too important. It eventually became my captor. It eventually became my everything.
I relish the clarity, vibrance and self-ness I feel without it.
And my life is sweet enough.
Ride of a Lifetime
One minute we were laughing. Young, hungover, late to the Superbowl party, totally free. Driving down a country road on New Year’s Day, we were heading towards our lives.
Must have hit a patch of black ice. Time stretched itself out like a taffy-pull. The car air filled with heartbeats and breath.
None us made a sound. Even the car, as it spun 360 degrees, was silent, seeming almost to hover above the ground.
I was in the back seat, on the hump between the seats. It felt like I was on the Teacups ride, facing the slow-whirling, hard-packed, icy snowland and barbed-wire fence as we spun. Katie’s red hair seemed to defy gravity, and you seemed set in plaster, both hands on the wheel.
It was surreal, those decades we turned together. Something transpired between us, unspoken, that would forever connect us.
When the car stopped, no one moved. The stillness seemed even more surreal than the spinning world, then, and I wasn’t sure if we’d died and this was heaven, or if somehow, miraculously, we had escaped what would surely have been a horrific and fatal crash.
More eons passed, until finally, as if on cue, we started laughing. Unbelievably, the car was even facing the right direction. We had literally completed a full two circles, and had stayed on the road.
We were whole. We were spared by the Angels.
We went on to the party, but didn’t tell anyone what had happened. Didn’t make into yet another college drinking story.
In fact, we never spoke of it again.
Mistaken Identity
I thought I was broken, thought I was missing
Thought parts of me had just died
Made friends with the holes that I thought you’d made
Made peace with what was left inside
Turns out I was wrong, nothing of me was gone
Certain parts just learned how to hide
I am whole, I am thriving, I am filled with myself
And that truth just cannot be denied
Ownership
No longer have to trademark my grief
Don’t need the world to see where I was broke
I’ve given myself full attention and love
All I’d held dormant is now woke
I’ve befriended it all, found a place in my heart
For what used to have me in tatters
Don’t need you to see it to make it all real
It’s mine now, and that’s all that matters
Beyond the Skinny Branches 